


Never Explain, Never Complain

by Obotligtnyfiken



Series: Chickens coming home to roost [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Scars, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-15 07:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 16,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13025988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obotligtnyfiken/pseuds/Obotligtnyfiken
Summary: Sherlock wrapped his scarf around his neck and tried to remember how long it would usually take him to get annoyed with waiting. Right about now, he decided, yelling “Come on John! The murder won’t solve itself!” and thundering down the stairs to haul a cab. Keeping up appearances seemed like the best way to get John to move back. He used to like it here. No need to let him know how much had changed.





	1. John visits, again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiplocks_of_love](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiplocks_of_love/gifts).



> This fic is inspired by the prompt ““Lies we tell ourselves” + “aqua regia” that I got from Shiplocks-of-love. Thank you for the inspiration! 
> 
> The prompt is based on one of my “Moffat’s chickens”: twelve ideas from the hiatus about what Steven Moffat could have meant when he said in an interview that chickens were coming home to roost in s4. Link for Moffat's Chickens: https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/138370350688/master-post-for-moffats-chickens
> 
> Thank you to my ever patient beta Wetislandinthenorthatlantic! 
> 
> I do not own these characters. This work is for entertainment purposes only.

It was Friday night and Sherlock was watching John as he sat in his chair in their living room. In Sherlock’s living room, that is. After all this time, Sherlock still couldn't stop thinking of the flat as theirs. John hadn’t been living there for years, but since his separation from Mary, he had taken to showing up uninvited and then disappearing just as unexpectedly as he arrived. Sherlock had been hoping that John would move back in again when his and Mary’s marriage finally disintegrated, but instead he had decided to camp out on his sister’s sofa. The disappointment gnawed in Sherlock’s chest and he couldn’t understand why this was bothering him so much. He had managed so many other disappointments when it came to John. 

Tonight, John was angry, nursing a whisky as he stared at the fire. Sherlock hid behind his microscope in the kitchen, giving John his space. 

John muttered into his glass, something about having cut the grass fifteen times while Mary had cut it eighteen times and was three grass cuttings really the price of a child's name. He was not making any sense whatsoever. For a while, Sherlock had been considering whether John was already drunk, but it was obvious from his pattern of movement that he was not. He had drunk one, no, two beers at a pub after trying to pick up Rosie, but this was his first whisky.

It was John’s weekend to have Rosie, according to the schedule, but apparently Mary had found a reason to keep him from picking her up again. Probably a cold. It really was a ludicrous excuse to claim that Rosie needed to stay with Mary when she was ill, her father being a bonafide doctor, but John didn’t seem capable of protesting. Mary kept Rosie close, as bait to lure John back home. John bounced back and forth, coming over when she called, but running away just as quickly again. He did the same to Sherlock. He seemed caught in limbo, unwilling to return, unwilling to call his lawyer and set the divorce in motion, unwilling to leave his sister’s couch and move to an apartment of his own. Or do the reasonable thing and move back to Baker Street. 

Sherlock couldn’t imagine why he endured his sister’s living room, in the middle of her drinking and her struggle not to drink. He wished that John would move back home, come back to 221 B Baker Street, but every time he tried to steer the conversation towards that subject, John turned into an angerball again and left for days on end. It felt terribly unnatural to be dancing around the issue like this. It was against his nature, but he didn’t know what else to do. John seemed poised like a scared bird on a fence, about to spread his wings and fly away forever if he could only decide which way to go. He kept showing up at Baker Street looking like he was about to say something, but in the end, he would only drink - tea, coffee, beer or whisky, depending on the time of day - and twist his wedding ring round and round his finger.

Sherlock’s mobile pinged, making both him and John jump in surprise. John sloshed whisky over his hand and Sherlock narrowly avoided spilling his experiment.

“It’s Lestrade. He has a case. Want to come?” Sherlock said as nonchalantly as he could manage.

“Sure.” John immediately put his whisky on the side table and stood up. Looking at his wet hand, he turned towards the bathroom. “I should probably wash off. No need to smell like a distillery.”

Sherlock wrapped his scarf around his neck and tried to remember how long it would usually take him to get annoyed with waiting. Right about now, he decided, yelling “Come on John! The murder won’t solve itself!” and thundering down the stairs to haul a cab. Keeping up appearances seemed like the best way to get John to move back. He used to like it here. No need to let him know how much had changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	2. Aqua Regia

“Don’t touch anything, and don’t go out on the balcony. They haven’t cleaned up the acid yet.” Lestrade looked tired, John thought as he shook his hand, the kind of tired that is only ever seen on the face of a cop with a free weekend ahead of him who got called out to a crime scene on a Friday night, just before his shift was supposed to end.

The corpse on the balcony reeked of chemicals and his face was so badly burned by acid that it turned John’s stomach, despite all the disgusting things he had seen in operating theatres and battlefields. Just outside the balcony door, almost at the threshold, was a ring. It was shaped like a wedding ring, and the colour was gold, but the pattern on the surface was oddly mottled. John found himself wondering if the gold had rusted, but stopped himself from saying so. No need to be laughed at more than necessary at Sherlock’s crime scene.

Technically, it was Lestrade’s crime scene, but as usual, Sherlock took over the room as soon as he swept in. He crouched in the doorway to the balcony for almost five minutes, peering intently at the corpse. He then jumped up suddenly and started whirling through the small apartment. He opened every door and every cupboard until he finally found what he was looking for in the hallway closet. At least John assumed so, based on the muffled but triumphant “Ha!” that was heard from behind the coats. Sherlock then started pacing back and forth in the living room, checking something on his mobile. He was practically vibrating with energy.

“Go home Lestrade! This is an accident, not a murder.”

“That sounds good for my weekend plans. But you’ll have to tell me why before I can close down the investigation.”

Sherlock made a show of sighing but John could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. He wanted to show off just as much as Lestrade wanted the facts for his report. Despite himself, John found himself hanging on to Sherlock’s every word, staring at his mouth, waiting to be amazed. These were the only times he really felt alive these days. 

“Mr Thomson was going through a bad divorce, as you can see from the dirty whisky glasses on the sofa table and the legal papers on his desk, and he drunkenly decided to dissolve his wedding ring.”

John suddenly found it difficult to breathe. He kept his eyes on Sherlock’s mouth, focussing on the curves of his Cupid’s bow, to keep them from straying towards the objects in the room, the symbols of the disintegrating marriage. 

“He is a chemist and had mistakenly put his home address on his order for supplies to the lab. The boxes are currently placed in his closet, presumably to be taken to work on Monday morning, since he has put a sticky note on his door saying BOXES! in large capitals.”

Sherlock waved vaguely towards the hallway and then swung his arm out over glasses on the sofa table. 

“Under the influence of second rate whisky, he decided to nick one bottle of nitric acid and one bottle of hydrochloric acid from the supplies to create aqua regia, the only substance that can dissolve gold.”

John mentally slapped his forehead. How could he have forgotten about aqua regia? His entire chemistry class had been up in arms about it in secondary school, when they realised that gold could be dissolved. It had taken their chemistry teacher’s full rhetoric powers to keep them from investigating every bottle in the chemistry cupboard to check if one of them was aqua regia with a fortune of dissolved gold floating in the liquid. Well, rhetoric powers and the threat of giving them all a D if they as much as touched the cupboard.

“Mr Thomson probably fell victim to the romantic notion of trying to erase the cause of his unhappiness through destroying the symbol of his marriage,” Sherlock said, wrinkling his nose. “He took the bottles from the box in the closet and went out on the balcony for fresh air, since the fumes are toxic. Incredibly stupid to handle aqua regia without protective equipment, of course, but he would probably have been fine if he hadn’t used his whisky glass for mixing the acids. The whisky left in the glass created an explosion, as aqua regia is prone to do with organic matter.”

Sherlock pointed towards the balcony. “Apart from the tiny shards of glass embedded in his face, …”

John peered through the balcony door to look at the disintegrating face of the corpse, but couldn’t see any glass shards. He could feel Lestrade trying to look over his shoulder.

“... the explosion blew the broken whisky glass as well as the bottles of acid off the balcony and down onto the street …”

Lestrade moved to the window to look down on the street and John followed him. The street was too dark to see much of anything. 

Sherlock, exasperated,  raised his voice. “... where it was all removed by the street sweeper this morning.”

John looked up at Sherlock and then at Lestrade. Lestrade looked as sheepish as John felt.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows, clearly annoyed at the distraction. “The acid blew up in his face and he inhaled enough of it to burn his pharynx to the point that he could no longer breathe. If he had received emergency care immediately, he might have lived, but in this part of town, no one bothers with a bang and some shattering glass.”

There was a moment of silence before Lestrade started rustling with his notebook.

“Can we go now?” Sherlock sighed. “I have an experiment that I would like to get back to. It certainly beats a clumsy chemist for an evening’s entertainment.”

Now that Sherlock’s performance was over, he turned towards the door, which meant that there was nothing stopping John from staring at the glasses on the sofa table. There were too many similarities to his own life: the whisky and the ignored divorce papers, the loneliness, the guilt, and the disturbing, irrational thoughts under the influence of alcohol. He felt like he was waiting for an explosion, some event that would make him choke on his own mistakes. He could already feel the acid burning his throat, the membranes starting to disintegrate and the tissue swelling, threatening to stop his breathing. 

“John?”

Sherlock was speaking. He was supposed to move now. He couldn’t even blink, but he did manage to swallow. The choking was in his mind, it wasn't real.

Lestrade cleared his throat. “I have to wrap this up, but maybe a pint later?” He slapped John on the back, which finally roused him.

“Yeah, maybe,” John said vaguely. A pub night with Lestrade might be just the ticket. It would be nice to get drunk enough to fall asleep without thinking. Drinking in Sherlock’s presence was always a bit awkward since he never joined in, and drinking in his sister’s flat was definitely out of bounds. 

“I’ll call you when I’m done, all right?”

“Sure,” John said and followed Sherlock down the stairs to the street. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	3. Babbling idiot

Sherlock ran up the stairs to the flat, hypersensitive to the sound of John’s feet behind him. Why was he here? Would he stay this time, or would he flit away as usual? Was he hoping for another case to keep the adrenaline going? Did he leave something behind that he wanted to pick up?

John went to his chair again. He didn’t even remove his jacket. Had he forgotten, or was he not staying long enough to take it off? He was sitting absolutely still, staring at the whisky glass that he had left on the table earlier. It was still half full.

Sherlock remembered that he had claimed to want to return to his experiment, so he went to the kitchen and sat down at the microscope. Was there something that he could do to make John stay? Something he could say?

John had started clearing his throat, as if it was irritated.

“Are you coming down with a cold, John?” John liked it when he was polite.

“What?” The question had roused John, but he seemed annoyed rather than pleased.

“Your throat.” Sherlock gestured vaguely. “Do you have a sore throat?”

“It’s nothing.” John returned to staring, but this time he seemed to take care to stare at anything but the whisky glass.

Sherlock realised to his dismay that he was starting to worry about what was being left unsaid, and was considering whether “thick enough to cut with a knife” would be an appropriate expression to describe the atmosphere. Great. He had now been reduced to contemplating idioms. He’d be babbling like an idiot next.

Thankfully, John’s phone rang before Sherlock accidentally said something stupid, and John left for that pint with Lestrade.

As John closed the door, Sherlock took a deep breath for the first time since returning home. Watching John leave cleared his lungs, and broke his heart in two, and he had no idea why.

 

\---

 

John’s night with Lestrade must have ended prematurely, Sherlock mused. They could not reasonably have had time for more than two beers, and John’s heavy stomping indicated frustration rather than fatigue.

John came in, fixed himself another whisky and sat down in his chair once more. For some reason, he had poured out the whisky from earlier and taken a new glass. Maybe a piece of dust or a small fly had landed in the glass during the course of the evening, Sherlock thought.

“Lestrade wanted an early night?” Sherlock realised that it was the wrong thing to say as the words were coming out of his mouth.   

John clenched his fist on the armrest of the chair and took another sip of his drink. OK, Sherlock thought, there’s the rage back again.

Sherlock returned to his experiment and put his eye to the microscope. “Damn!”

“What?”

“The solution has been contaminated again.” Sherlock went to the sink and poured it down the drain. He rinsed the flask, scrubbed it and held it up to the light. At the bottom, there was a tiny line of residue. He scrubbed it again, but it wouldn’t budge. It was time for the big guns.

Sherlock opened the cupboard above the toaster. He took out gloves and goggles, put them on and reached back into the cupboard for the bottles of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. Behind him, he heard John moving into the kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

Sherlock put the bottles down next to the sink and opened the kitchen window. “I need to clean this flask. Residue is contaminating my experiment.”

John walked over and leaned in next to Sherlock, but immediately jumped backwards.“Sherlock! Are you insane!”

Sherlock decided to try to ignore John and started uncorking one of the bottles. John really has a lot of anger these days, Sherlock thought to himself.

“Sherlock, stop that right now!” John barked. Sherlock froze. John didn’t bring out that voice very often.

John grabbed gloves from the cupboard, put them on and carefully folded his hands around Sherlock’s, removing them from the bottle. John’s hands felt oddly inhuman through two pairs of gloves.

After putting the cork back on the bottle, John took a deep breath and seemed to allow the anger back in. “Why on EARTH do you have nitric acid and hydrochloric acid IN THE KITCHEN?!”

Sherlock focused on sounding calm. “Aqua regia is the best way to clean residue from glass that cannot be removed with normal cleaning.”

“I took chemistry too, you know. Aqua regia should never be used outside a fume hood!” John was going from angry to furious, fast. “My God, we just saw a man half dissolved on his own balcony from exploding aqua regia, and you want to use it IN THE KITCHEN!”

Slowly, Sherlock put the bottles back in the cupboard, pulled off his gloves and goggles, put them back on the shelf and closed the door.

John seemed to be stalling as well, pulling his gloves off one finger at the time. He was clenching his hand to try and stop it from shaking.

Then, suddenly, John grabbed Sherlock by the neck, squeezing roughly and pushing his forehead against the cupboard door. His hand was not trembling anymore.

“Why do you keep putting yourself at risk, Sherlock? For no good reason? Hm?”

“There is reason to everything I do, John.”

John’s hand squeezed Sherlock’s neck, his nails digging into the skin, pressing Sherlock’s forehead harder against the wood of the door.

“No, there is not. No reason that I can see, Sherlock.” John cleared his throat and swallowed audibly. “You have got to stop doing this. I can’t …”

Suddenly, John let go, turned around and took a deep breath.

“You have to get rid of those” he said lightly, with a stiff smile. “Mrs Hudson will have a fit.”

Ah. Fighting anger with passive aggressive levity. A classic Watson tactic. He’d best join in, then, Sherlock thought.

“She’s not my housekeeper.”

“Yeah, right. And you’re not a psychopath.” Anger crept back into John’s voice.

False levity is better than true anger, Sherlock decided. Well, not really. The opposite actually, but not when it came to John. Not right now. “And Lestrade is not an idiot.”

A ghost of a smile danced around the corner of John’s mouth. “And you are not a hero.”

At the echo of his own words from long ago, something warm happened inside Sherlock’s chest. Under the pretext of fiddling with his shirt button, he touched his sternum to try to capture the feeling, keep it inside, but he accidentally rubbed the scar from Mary’s gunshot with the heel of his hand. He winced in pain as the stiff skin pulled at the scarred tissue underneath. Once the pain was gone, so was the warmth, and Sherlock wanted it back. He decided to try to salvage it, to see if he could replicate the situation. He needed one more lie, one more “am not” to make fun of.

“And you are not …” No, not that one. Sherlock quickly shut his mouth and turned away, face hot with shame. There was nothing that made John more defensive than someone claiming that he was gay, and to joke about that was definitely “not good”.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“What?” John was getting agitated.

“Fine. Let’s go to Barts.”

“Barts?” The sudden change of subject seemed to confuse John enough to forget the ill advised joke.

“Yes. I’ll clean the flask there.” It was an absurd excuse for ending the conversation, but what could he do.

“Fine. We’ll go to Barts.” John downed his whisky and turned on his heel, heading down the stairs towards the street.

Sherlock watched him disappear down the stairs before slowly descending himself. He had ruined it. They had had a moment of something, some connection beyond anger and absence, and he had to go and ruin it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	4. Small talk

In the taxi, Sherlock leaned his head against the cool glass to steady himself. It was as if he and John were teetering on the edge of a cliff, about to fall over, and the only thing keeping them tied to normalcy was the wedding ring on John’s finger, the one he kept twisting round and round. 

Sherlock felt as if he was about to go insane from all this florid thinking and banged his head against the glass to try to shake the allegories away. John startled and looked a bit too closely at him, so Sherlock decided to deflect the attention from himself.

“Did you know that George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck in aqua regia during World War II, to stop the nazis from confiscating them? He hid the solution among the other bottles in his laboratory and they never found it. After the war, the gold was re-cast as medals which were again presented to the scientists.”

John was staring at Sherlock. “Small talk? Really?”

Sherlock glared back with what he hoped was a withering look.

“You never small talk,” John said. The concept seemed to have thrown him for a loop.

Sherlock opted for silence and turned his head to stare out of the window instead.

John looked out of his window as well, mumbling into the collar of his jacket. “You never small talk and you never beg.” He squirmed in his seat as if he was anxious, or perhaps uncomfortable. 

“What actually happened between you and Irene Adler that night, when she betrayed you?”

Sherlock felt nauseous, as if he had motion sickness from the swift change of topic. How had the conversation gone from Nobel Prizes to The Woman in under ten seconds? He needed to stop this line of conversation quickly.

“I have no idea what you are talking about, John.” 

“Fine.” John’s anger was back. “If that’s the way you want it.”

John mimicked Sherlock’s intent stare out of the window and the silence that Sherlock had been aiming for arrived. But now that he had it, he realised that angry silence was even worse than chatting.

“She’s not dead.” he blurted out.

“What?” John said, for the fourth, no, fifth time this evening.

“She got caught by a terrorist cell in Pakistan but managed to get a text to me before they took her phone.”

“And you did what? Called Mycroft?”

“No, of course not. I went there and saved her. Mycroft thinks that she is dead.”

“Yes, I know.” John had a confused frown on his face and seemed to have latched on to the one thing he already knew.

“Yes, I know that you know.”

Finally, there was a little glimmer in John’s eyes. He was trying to be annoyed, but was failing miserably. 

“You bastard.”

Sherlock smiled back, basking in the warmth of the insult.

“So, when did you last see her?”

“I told you. In Karachi.”

“No, you told me that was where you saved her. Haven’t you seen her since then?”

“No.” He had known this was coming. John just couldn’t let Irene Adler go.

“Not once?”

“She texts sometimes, but I never reply.”

“Asking you to dinner?”

“Yes.”

“So why don’t you answer her?”

Sherlock sighed as quietly as he could. “I’ve told you a million times, John. The fair sex is your department.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	5. Scars

John tried to find a comfortable lab chair that neither pinched the back of his thighs nor tried to roll away and throw him unceremoniously to the floor. Eventually, he gave up and decided to stand leaning against the work top. It reminded him of all those nights he had stood watching Sherlock work, trying to solve one murder or another. 

There was no case tonight, and John couldn’t really remember why he had tagged along to watch Sherlock clean his equipment, but the thought of leaving him alone with dangerous acids made John’s stomach turn. He had bullied Sherlock into putting a lab coat on and now he’d just stand guard for a while, like he always did. It wasn’t as if he had something better to do. 

“Damn!”

Sherlock was leaning forward awkwardly.

“What happened?” John rushed forward. Sherlock was standing hunched over, pulling his shirt from his body with his gloved fingertips. There were stains on it, and holes were starting to form. 

“I splashed nitric acid on my shirt. I don’t think it has touched my skin, though.”

John pulled on a pair of gloves and quickly pinched the shirt front on each side to help Sherlock keep the acid away from his body. “Why didn’t you button your coat, Sherlock!” He had meant to just say it, but realised that he had shouted straight into Sherlock’s face.

“I don’t know, maybe because these things are stiff as cardboard!” Sherlock glared back. 

“Well, it really is a disgrace that the lab doesn’t have luxury lab coats for you to nick when you borrow their lab uninvited,” John snared. 

Sherlock sighed. “Could you just help me get my shirt off? I can’t unbutton it and keep the acid away from my skin at the same time. Nitric acid burns aren’t particularly nice.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve seen it first hand. You really don’t want that shirt to touch your skin.” As John started to look at the situation as a physician, anger sank away and returned to its normal low level simmer.

Unbuttoning someone else’s shirt with chemical resistant gloves on was difficult, especially since he didn’t want to risk moving the shirt so much that the acid rubbed against Sherlock’s skin. When John finally slipped the last button through the buttonhole, they both let out a relieved sigh. Sherlock spread the shirt open, holding the fabric even further from his chest and straightened his back. 

John looked at the configuration of shirt, lab coat and limbs in front of him and scratched his head. “I think we are going to have to take off the lab coat and the shirt at the same time. You’ll have to let go of the shirt to get your arms out of the sleeves and I don’t want to have to hold the shirt while you wiggle out of the coat.”

“If you stand behind me and reach round, you can grab both the coat and the shirt and pull them back while I slip my arms out of the sleeves.”

”Right.”

John followed Sherlock’s directions and carefully pulled both the coat and the shirt down Sherlock’s arms, keeping his eyes on his hands and the acid stained fabric dangling from them. 

Suddenly, the smooth movement stopped. The garments had bunched around Sherlock’s wrists and his hands were stuck halfway through the coat sleeves. 

“Hang on …” John tried to make sense of what had happened. “Let me see …” Ah. They had forgotten to unbutton the shirt cuffs. John shifted the fabric around in his hands until he was holding just the shirt in his hands. A little shake, and the lab coat slid to the floor. But Sherlock’s hands were still stuck inside the shirt sleeves, trapping his hands behind his back, and John was stuck holding the shirt. 

John opened his mouth to tell Sherlock to unbutton the cuffs, when he suddenly realised that Sherlock hands were shaking. John lifted his eyes, intending once more to speak, but he got stuck trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It felt as if he could actually feel his brain synapses flip between the two equally confusing concepts before him: Sherlock, the inscrutable machine, was trembling all over, and on Sherlock’s back were a number of ugly scars. Scars that John had never seen before. They had definitely not been there when he had sashayed around in Buckingham Palace naked under a thin white sheet. Some were thick and ragged, as if they had been left unattended and become infected, and some bore obvious signs of having been stitched, but then torn open and not properly seen to again.

“Sherlock …” John finally managed to get out, but the rest of the sentence got stuck in his throat.

Sherlock’s trembling was getting worse and he whispered something intelligible.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Untie me!” Sherlock shouted in a strangled voice.

John fumbled with the shirt, trying to find a way to unbutton the cuffs safely. “I don’t think I can unbutton these cuffs without dropping the shirt. Do you think you could …”

Sherlock whimpered. “Untie me. Please untie me.” 

John had never heard such desperation in Sherlock’s voice. He finally snapped to. Sherlock never begged, and here he was, begging and trembling. For God's sake, as a military doctor, it shouldn’t take him this long to recognise a flashback. “Sherlock,” he said gently but firmly. “You are not tied up. It’s just the buttons on your cuffs. We forgot to unbutton them. Do you want to try to unbutton them yourself, or do you want me to rip them open?”

“Rip them open.” Sherlock was stiff as a board from trying to control the trembling.

John gathered as much fabric in his hands as he dared and yanked Sherlock’s shirt down. The buttons snapped and pinged against the hard lab floor. Sherlock whipped around and backed away quickly, scanning the room and keeping a free path between himself and the door. After a moment, he seemed to realise where he was. He stopped and tried to regain his straight posture. He couldn’t make his hands stop shaking, though, so he put them under his arms in an awkward hug to keep them still and started turning around. He stopped in an odd half profile, as if he was trying to hide his face and his back at the same time.

The neater but much deadlier scar on the front of Sherlock’s chest seemed unnaturally red in the fluorescent light in the lab. For a moment, it seemed to John as if there was a laser sight pointed right at it, but he managed to stop himself from looking around for the sniper. There were no threats here except memories that were making hearts beat too fast and eyes see what was not there. 

“Everything is fine, Sherlock. You were just stuck because your cuffs were buttoned. I couldn’t unbutton them because I was keeping the nitric acid away from your skin. OK?”

Sherlock stood stock still for a moment, but then sniffed and said “Obviously.”

The normality of the insult was reassuring. “I’ll just get rid of this shirt and find you something else to wear, all right?” John said and quickly left the room.

Once he had disposed of the ruined shirt, John leaned against the wall to catch his breath. He had always thought Sherlock invincible, a superhero that nothing could touch. The man had even returned from death, willed himself to live after a fatal gunshot wound to the chest. And now he was trembling with flashbacks and had scars all over his back. John’s mind still couldn’t compute these two concepts, but Sherlock shouldn’t be left alone right now. John grabbed a scrub top from a shelf and went back to the lab.

Sherlock was staring out the window, wrapped in his coat.

“Did you get any acid burns?” John left the violently turquoise top at the end of the lab bench, where Sherlock could see it but where John didn’t get too close and invade Sherlock’s space.

“No.”

“Are you sure? Let me check.”

“I said no.”

“All right.” John thought about insisting for a moment, but decided that it would do more harm than good. “Let me just clean this up and then we can go.”

John pulled on gloves, lab coat and safety goggles, and started cleaning up the work space. Sherlock stood still as a statue by the window until John was almost done. Then he swept out of the room without a word and disappeared down the corridor. John hurried to put away the safety equipment and then ran down the stairs. As he stepped out onto the pavement in the crisply cold night, he could see the back lights on a cab drive away.

“Damn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:   
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	6. I owe you

The sound of John’s key in the lock downstairs grated on Sherlock’s nerves and he allowed himself to clench his teeth and his fists for precisely three seconds before quickly throwing himself down on the sofa, assuming what John referred to as his “thinking pose”. He had run out of diversionary tactics to keep John from attempting conversation and had resorted to the only thing that he could pretend was working: trying to look like he was in his Mind Palace, unable to communicate. He no longer cared if John fell for the ruse.

John’s gait was determined today, but there was a hint of his old limp. He said a quiet hello but didn’t try to rouse Sherlock. Instead, he headed towards the kitchen. Sherlock opened his eyes a sliver to see the sturdy line of his back and the golden-silver hair at the back of his neck. He needed to refill his image library of John, to overwrite the image of John’s confused face as he stood there in the lab with Sherlock’s stupid shirt in his hands. It was difficult to do, though, since actually looking John in the face seemed impossible these days, and the glimpses of his back and his hands and his feet that Sherlock was managing to catch were not doing it. 

As John turned sideways to pick up an abandoned cup of tea from the little side table next to his old chair, Sherlock caught sight of his profile. It made his eyes go moist, tears gathering among his eyelashes. He quickly shut them again, but he was thankful for the unexpected view of the side of John’s face. Maybe he could work with that.

John went into the kitchen and started making tea. Two cups from the sound of it. He was not going to back down today, that much was clear.

Sherlock tried keep still on the sofa, to focus on memorising his new image of John, but his back was itching so badly that he had to squirm. Ever since that night in the lab, the scars itched as if they were scabs instead of scar tissue. He had even started wearing undershirts, to keep the fabric of his dress shirt from rubbing against them, but even the fine cotton jersey was too coarse. He had finally resorted to ordering silk undershirts online, but the order hadn’t arrived yet.

There was a clunk of porcelain against wood next to Sherlock’s ear. Tea was ready. Sherlock could hear John lowering himself into his chair. A faint susurration could be heard as John blew on the tea. Sherlock imagined that he could feel John’s breath on his cheek, like a caress.

“I know you are not in that Mind Palace of yours, Sherlock.”

Oh, God. Here we go.

“I know that you want to be left alone.”

Yes, John. Brilliant observation. Absolutely amazing deduction. Sherlock had started to find that John’s anger strategies were surprisingly effective, if applied with a healthy dose of sarcasm. He felt better already.

“But I also know that this is not healthy.”

Sherlock felt his pulse race. OK, anger strategies had drawbacks too. The anger was really hard to rein in once it got going.

“I know a thing or two about PTSD, both as a doctor and as a patient.” John said stiffly. “I want to be here for you. I owe you that much.” Sherlock tried to focus on how uncomfortable John sounded, how unnatural it must feel for him to say these things, but to no avail. I OWE YOU rang too loudly in his ears, John’s and Moriarty’s voices mixing into a roar.

Sherlock sprang up from the sofa and turned on the surprised John. “No, you don’t owe me anything. That was Moriarty’s specialty,” he spat contemptuously. 

Sherlock threw his dressing gown on the sofa and ran down the stairs with as much dignity as he could manage. The cold wind that blasted his face as he opened the door offered a welcome distraction. He grabbed his coat and stepped out. 

\---

As the pubs were closing and the streets became too noisy with drunks, Sherlock turned home to Baker Street. He walked up the stairs to find a perfectly silent flat. The tea cups were gone and so was the sense that John had ever been there. Sherlock walked over to John’s armchair and put his hand on the seat. It was cold, as cold as the rest of the flat without a fire in the grate. 

\---

One week later, John had not returned and had not made contact in any way. He seemed to have finally made his decision and flown away, back to Mary or off to God knows where. But not back to Sherlock. 

Sherlock wasn’t sleeping. Keeping the disappointment at bay was taking so much effort that there seemed to be no energy left to keep the nightmares out. Sherlock swung between waken depression and sleeping horror. It was almost too much to bear.

\---

Two weeks later, there was finally a case. Sherlock managed to deflect all questions about John and whirled around London in a frenzy until a human trafficking ring had been identified, exposed and most of the main figures arrested. 

After finally finding and saving a lorry full of young girls and boys, he returned to his flat for the first time in three days and fell into a dreamless sleep so deep that he didn’t even notice Mycroft intruding. He found an annoying letter about not letting “ the affairs of Mary Watson née Morstan go unnoticed” propped against his microscope in the kitchen when he woke up late the next evening.

\---

Three weeks later, Sherlock decided that John was gone for good and set about cleaning him away from the front rooms of his Mind Palace. It didn’t make him feel better, and it didn’t really work, but at least it kept him busy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	7. Drunk

Sherlock’s mobile danced on the kitchen table as Lestrade’s ringtone rang out, accompanied by the amplified buzzing of the tabletop vibrating along with the phone. 

“What?” 

“Hi, Sherlock. Listen, I need you to come to The Swan, my local.”

“Case?”

“No, it’s John. He’s really drunk and I need you to help me get him to a sofa where he can sleep it off.”

John. Sherlock had finally managed to cut down thinking about John to three times a day and this was eating into his quota. 

“I can’t understand why you need me.”

“Sherlock, it’s John.”

“Yes. John is a man of shorter than average stature and even if he is more muscular than he appears, he really isn’t heavy.” Damn. He wasn’t supposed to think about John’s body. At all. “There should be someone at the pub who could help you drag him to a taxi.”

Lestrade was silent for a moment. “Has he told you that Mary has moved to the States, taking Rosie with her? She left three days ago. She gave John an ultimatum, he could come back or she would leave.”

The careful scaffolding inside Sherlock’s chest, designed to keep the whirling memories of  John away from his heart, came tumbling down like a house of cards. John all alone was a concept too dreadful and too wonderful to contemplate. 

The tone in Lestrade’s voice indicated that Sherlock had been silent for too long, again.  “Get your arse over here or so help me God I’ll never let you in on a case again.” Lestrade really did have an impressively commanding voice when he put his mind to it. 

Sherlock snorted, taking refuge behind disdain. “Your career would never recover.”

“Sod my career! You crashed it once before when you decided to go gallivanting away on adventures, leaving us all thinking you were dead while you were out having fun.” Sherlock flinched. “I survived then and I’ll survive again if I have to.”

Sherlock’s mind was full of blaring sirens from the memories of his “adventures” and the whirling thoughts of John alone, or worse, John following Mary and Rosie to the US. Through the din, Sherlock somehow managed to notice the tone of Lestrade’s voice. He really was angry now. 

“Fine. I’ll come.”

Sherlock hung up and grabbed his coat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	8. Vigil

The backs of Sherlock’s thighs felt permanently attached to Lestrade’s ugly and surprisingly uncomfortable armchair. Sherlock blinked slowly, to give his eyelids time to replenish the tear film on his gritty eye balls. He ought to do an experiment on the tear film on corpses, he mused. 

Despite the glare of the early afternoon sun through the unwashed windows of Lestrade’s flat, Sherlock’s fatigue got the better of him, his head nodding forward of its own accord. His neck stretched uncomfortably, and he jerked awake again after a dissatisfying micro sleep. Staying alert during a case was one thing, but a long night and a long morning of watching John sleep off his inebriation was nothing but torture. Lestrade had left for work hours ago.  Sherlock was even starting to feel inclined to do what Lestrade told him to and make himself a sandwich for a late lunch. 

At least the vigil had given him a chance to get used to looking at John’s face again, to be able to look at John without flinching with memories of that night in the lab. He had studied John from all available angles, but mostly his left side, since he had spent much of the night sleeping with his face squashed against the sofa cushion, snoring loudly. 

But worse than the lumpy armchair and the constant tug of war between wanting to look at John and wanting to look away, had been the drawn out loneliness and ennui making all the ghosts from his past come crawling out from under Lestrade’s dusty curtains. 

Sherlock had always prided himself on his decisiveness. Once he made a choice, he didn’t look back. But all those choices were haunting him now. All the things he never said. Not telling John that Moriarty was threatening him. Not telling John that he was leaving, why he had left, how he had left, and where he had been. Not telling John whatever words would not form in his mouth  when that airp lane was about to fly him to his death. Not taking Mycroft’s hint to check up on John and Mary, so that he could have known that Mary had taken John’s daughter from him.

And then there were the things that he did, that he should not have done. Storming out when John wanted to speak with him. Trying to overdose so that he would not need to be there when that plane landed. Underestimating Magnussen. Vowing to always be there for a woman he had not even dared to deduce properly, just because she was John’s wife.  Painting a moustache and pretending to be a waiter. Making John watch him fall. Telling him that he did not care. Telling him that he was married to his work. 

There was no way to go back and fix those things, and no words that could make the memories go away. One shouldn’t do that, anyway. Never explain, never complain.

John stirred on the couch and Sherlock sat up straight, perfectly awake again. Not long now. He tiptoed over to the tiny kitchenette and flipped the coffee machine on. He had prepared it after Lestrade left for work, to be ready for when John woke up. He opened the fridge, took out a filled water glass and placed it quietly next to the painkillers on the sofa table, close to John’s head. Then he sat down to wait for the coffee machine’s beep. That was sure to end the last dregs of John’s hangover sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	9. Talk, or Leave!

It felt weird to wake up in someone else’s flat, John thought as he walked into the kitchen, rubbing his hair with a towel. Carefully rubbing his hair, that is, since his head couldn’t take too much jostling in this condition.

“So. Now that I am actually awake. Why are we in Lestrade’s flat, where is Lestrade and why are you making toast?”

Sherlock looked up from the toaster. “Lestrade left for work hours ago.”

“And why are you here?” Focusing on the facts felt good. It gave some definition to this unusually fuzzy morning. Day. Afternoon. 

Sherlock prodded the toaster as if it would speed up the toasting process. “I’m here because Lestrade told me I needed to be. I’m not sure why, but the really interesting question is why you are here.”

John felt himself bristle. “Why I’m here?”

Sherlock straightened his back and looked right at John. He hadn’t done that in ages, John realised. He felt pinned by the piercing stare of those eau de nil eyes. 

“Yes. Why are you sleeping off a spectacular drinking binge on Lestrade’s sofa instead of going home? And why is that home still your sister’s couch?”

John stared straight back at Sherlock, feeling the heat creeping up his neck, making his headache worse. He really wasn’t in the mood for Sherlock’s kind of crap this morning. This afternoon. Whatever.

Sherlock put on his indifferent face again. “Lestrade told me about Mary leaving. For some reason he thinks that here is something that I need to say to you in this situation. I was rather hoping that you could tell me what that is supposed to be, because I confess that I have no idea.”

John felt frozen. What had he told Lestrade last night, and what had Lestrade told Sherlock? He really, really did not want to speak to Sherlock about Rosie. That wound was still too raw.

Sherlock handed him a second cup of coffee and a dry piece of toast. “Eat. You must be feeling terrible.” Sitting down at the table, Sherlock delicately balanced a piece of toast with jam on his long fingers and started eating.

John briefly considered refusing, but gave in to his growling stomach and the nausea in his throat. He sat down as well and started chewing on his dry toast. 

Five minutes later, Sherlock was looking out of the window, mindlessly licking jam from the inside of his left ring finger. John couldn’t look away. The jam had fallen precisely in the place where Sherlock’s wedding ring would be, if he ever married. The rosy tip of his tongue dipped out from behind his lips and licked the jam away, leaving a glistening ring of saliva and sugar where a golden band should be. Should have been. Could be.

John shook his head, carefully, and looked for something to say. He cleared his throat and said “We used to sit like this.”

Sherlock looked up, surprised. “When?”

“When we were living at Baker Street together. We used to eat breakfast and look for cases in the newspaper.”

“Yes.”

John could think of nothing more to say, and Sherlock didn’t seem to consider the conversation worth continuing. The awkward silence returned.

John drained the last of his coffee and cleared their mugs away. He took them to the sink and spent as much time washing and drying them as he could. When he couldn’t stall anymore, he turned around and leaned against the sink, arms crossed and head down. “I’m sorry Lestrade dragged you out here.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you sorry?”

“You don’t want to talk to me, and you don’t like to leave the flat for less than an eight.”

When Sherlock didn’t reply, John looked up to see two red spots burning high on Sherlock’s pale cheeks. Sherlock looked away to avoid John’s eyes. John felt the old irritation rise again. Sherlock was always hiding something. “What?!” he said, letting the irritation show. “What is it that you are not telling me? You never tell me anything, Sherlock!” His voice had risen to a shout, and it felt good. “I’m not even worth spending your breath on, so why are you here?”

“I … I don’t know what to say, John.”

“Don’t bother.” John stood up to leave but Sherlock held up his hand.

“No, stop. I mean … I don’t know how. I … I never talk about … Never explain, never complain, you know?”

“What kind of stupid stiff upper lip nonsense is that?”

“It always seemed best. Nothing good has ever come of explaining anything.”

John’s head felt like it would explode with frustration. “Well, you’d better start explaining to me! Talk, or leave!”

“This is Lestrade’s flat, you know. You can’t really …” 

John interrupted him, holding up his hand. “Stop right there, Sherlock, or so help me God.”

“Fine. I’m sorry. I’ll do my best. What do you want to know?”

John’s knees buckled a bit at the unexpected offer. He straightened himself, walked over to the table, sat down and took a deep breath. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	10. Domestic

Sherlock braced himself and tried to commit to answering John’s questions in full. Or at least to attempting to keep himself from evading or derailing the questioning.

“Why are you here?” John was starting with the basics.

“Because Lestrade asked me to come help him get you out of the pub. He then told me to stay put and make sure that you didn't choke on your own vomit during the night. There was no risk for that, of course. You were drunk, but not that drunk. But Lestrade was adamant that I had to stay, and that I could not leave until I had talked to you. He refused to clarify about what, but still.” There. That was a comprehensive answer, wasn’t it?

“OK, but why did you do it? You never do what you are told.”

Sherlock opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He closed his mouth again, feeling like a gaping fish. What could he say? I came because it was about you, John? No, that wouldn’t do.

John was already starting to look annoyed. “You have been ignoring me for ages. Why show up now?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I haven’t been ignoring you.”

John gave him one of his looks, the one that made Sherlock feel that he was teetering on the edge of something very dangerous.

Sherlock once again opened and shut his mouth, annoyed with his own inability and increasingly scared that John would get up and leave.

John leaned back, crossing his arms again.

“Fine. Let’s talk about your scars instead,” he said, vindictively.

Despite his resolve, Sherlock stood up and walked over to the window. His legs seemed to have gotten a will of their own and his hands were shaking again. He crossed his arms, mimicking John, and gripped his biceps to keep his hands still.

Behind his back, he heard John turn towards him. “I have been to war, you know. Have seen lots of scars. Have a few of my own.” His voice was suddenly gentle, compassionate. It made Sherlock’s breath wobble in his chest. “I know how an infected wound scars. I know how torn stitches scar. So you don’t need to tell me about what kind of scars they are. I already know that. How about you tell me where you got them instead.”

Where. He could do that. It was just a country. He had said the name several times in school - not in geography, since it was still part of Yugoslavia back then, but in history lessons. He could do this. “Serbia.” There. He had managed it.

“Why were you in Serbia?”

“I was taking out Moriarty’s network.” That one slipped out surprisingly easy. Maybe talking was actually going to be possible.

This time, it was John who couldn’t stay seated. Sherlock heard the chair scrape against the floor as John suddenly pushed it back. He started pacing back and forth behind Sherlock. The unseen movements made Sherlock’s hair stand on end and his heart start racing. Under the pretext of wanting to lean his bum against the window sill, he turned around so that he could see John, keep an eye on his movements. 

John stopped pacing and turned towards Sherlock. His mouth was drawn to a line.

“I know that I forgave you that day in the underground, when you pretended that you couldn’t disarm the bomb. But how do you really forgive someone for faking his death? Hm?” John was sticking his chin out the way he always did when he was pushing a point. 

“For faking his death in front of your eyes, for going on adventures on his own when you used to do them together?” John was shouting again. “It’s always here, Sherlock, always right here.” He slammed his fist so hard into his chest that Sherlock worried that he had bruised his heart. Sherlock imagined that he could recognise the feeling. “So why do I come back? Why do I keep coming back when I’m not even a blip on your screen?”

“A blip? John, you are not making any sense.”

“Fuck this. Fuck it!” John screamed, kicking the kitchen chair, upending it so that it crashed into the table. 

Silence.

“Sherlock, what happened in Serbia.” John’s voice was calmer again, as if he was trying to rein in his anger. Sherlock realised that he was crouching, his back against the radiator and his hands shielding his head. His heart was racing, beating so hard that Sherlock could hardly hear John over the rushing in his ears. He carefully straightened himself on wobbly legs and put his hands in his armpits, trapping them there, letting the trembling shake his ribs. 

“Why do you put yourself in that position? Why do you keep throwing your life away at a whim? Why? Why?” John had raised his voice again, his fury uncontainable. “Do you enjoy it? Is that how you get your kicks?

John started moving in on Sherlock. “Is that the only time you feel alive, when you are facing death and there is nothing between you and eternity but the barrel of your gun? When you can taste adrenaline like metal in your mouth? Are you so numb that you can feel nothing but terror? Is that the only time you know what it is like to be human?” John’s chest was heaving, his face red from the shouting.

Sherlock tried to stand straight, to keep a modicum of dignity. “No, John. I am not the one who is addicted to adrenaline.” 

John didn’t seem to notice the barbed comment. “What’s it like then? You sociopaths don’t feel empathy and emotions like the rest of us, so what’s that like? Don’t you even feel fear? Don’t you fear death? Is it all the same to you?” 

John was so close that Sherlock could feel tiny drops of spit land on his cheek. It should have been impossible for such a short person to tower over Sherlock, but somehow he managed it. “Is that why you keep putting yourself in danger? Because not even death makes you flinch? Huh?” 

John jabbed his finger against Sherlock’s chest. “Is it? Then why, Sherlock, if you are such an emotionless machine, why are you flinching now?”

John was panting, but Sherlock couldn’t seem to draw a breath. He resigned himself to the burning in his lungs. It would have to do for now.

A loud banging made them both jump and Sherlock drew a surprised breath. A muffled shout was heard through the wall. “Keep it down in there, or I’ll call the police!” 

John looked about to explode, but after a moment, he made a complicated motion with his mouth. “Lestrade would be really unhappy if he got a call about a domestic at his own flat,” he said.

“Yes, that might send him over the bend.”

John kept looking into Sherlock’s eyes, pressing his lips together as if to keep something in. He managed for a few seconds, but then, to Sherlock’s astonishment, he started to giggle. An enormous sense of relief flooded through Sherlock and he couldn’t help but join in.

“Stop it, we can’t giggle. Stop it!” These were the same words that John had said all those years ago after shooting the cabbie. Their first case together.

Something hopeful bloomed in Sherlock’s chest and he looked at John under his eyelashes. “You’re the one who shouted. Don’t blame me.”

John looked up, confused for a second, but then he seemed to remember the words. He smiled fondly, but quickly became serious again. “That first night, I asked if you got your kicks risking your life to prove that you are clever. You never answered me.”

“And you told me that I was an idiot. I didn’t have much to add to that.”

John looked thoughtfully at Sherlock. “I think it’s time you told me a bit more about your particular brand of idiocy.”

The road forwards suddenly seemed clear to Sherlock. “Dinner?” He mimicked his question from that night so long ago, despite the fact that it wasn’t even midafternoon yet.

A smile spread on John’s face, tentative but real. “Starving.”

“End of Baker Street, there’s a good Chinese. You can always tell a good Chinese by examining the bottom third of the door handle.”

John made a wry face. “Not sure I could stomach Chinese right now. But if we walk there, I’ll probably be ravenous by the time we arrive.”

Sherlock smiled back at that. It felt a bit unnatural, as if his face had forgotten how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	11. Revelations

The scent of greasy Chinese wafted from Sherlock’s coat as he floated up the stairs in front of John. Day had turned to night and the darkness of the stairwell was playing tricks on John’s eyes, making him think that Sherlock was wavering, about to fall. Looking up at Sherlock from below was always a challenge, John thought, but as long as he was walking up stairs it was usually fine. It was actually worse to be behind Sherlock when he was going down the stairs. If he was wearing his coat, John couldn’t see if his feet were sure on the steps, or if he was about to stumble to his death.

They entered the flat and hung up their coats. John looked around, feeling nervous for the first time tonight.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Sherlock, but would you have a whisky with me?”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

“I know that Lestrade thinks that I am turning alcoholic, but I’m really not. It’s just been … well.” John rubbed his face and tried to get his words to match his thoughts. “He is right about one thing, though. We really do need to talk. And we men … Well, we talk better if we have a tumbler of something in our hands, don’t we?”

Sherlock looked a little less skeptical.

“Will you have a whisky with me and see if we can manage a conversation without shouting or storming out?” John said.

Sherlock raised the other eyebrow.

“OK, without me shouting or you storming out.”

Sherlock smiled. It was a small, private smile, and John realised how long it had been since he had seen Sherlock look happy.

“And without you turning into a pillar of stone,” he added.

“A what?”

“You do that thing with your face. You drain all emotion from your face so that you look almost like a statue.”

“I do?”

“Yes, Sherlock, you do. Whenever anyone gets within ten feet of anything personal or you risk showing an emotion, you pull the shutters down so that no one can get to you. That makes it difficult to have an honest conversation.”

Sherlock thought for a moment. “You’d better pour me a whisky then, John. Let’s see if the age old ritual of two men, a fire and two glasses of distilled, fermented grain mash can keep my facial muscles mobile.” He bent down to start the fire in the grate.

John chuckled and went to get the glasses in the kitchen, navigating between scientific equipment and piles of newspapers. It always amazed him how Sherlock constantly managed to make a complete mess of the place, while still keeping some invisible structure intact so that John always knew where to find the things he needed. He opened the cabinet and took out a bottle and two glasses.

“Well, that’s not really an accurate description,” Sherlock rumbled from the living room. “Fermented, distilled and then aged, I should say.”

“You are making small talk again,” John said over his shoulder.

“Sorry.”

John smiled and poured the whisky.

\---

John had intended to get straight to it, but it took him half a glass of whisky to gather enough courage to ask. Finally, he took a deep breath and said “I want to see them.”

Sherlock looked up, alarmed. He had obviously understood what John meant.

“Please. They have been haunting my dreams since that night in the lab. I need to see what they look like in real life.”

Sherlock sat immobile for a moment, but then he stood up and started unbuttoning his dark red shirt.

John stood up as well, hesitating in front of him. A flash of white silk underneath the red shirt surprised him. “You never wear undershirts?”

“The scars have started itching.”

A chill came over John. He emptied his whisky and closed his eyes for a moment. “Since that night in the lab?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock’s shirt finally fell open and he shrugged it off his shoulders, slipping it off and throwing it over the armrest of his chair with false bravado. He quickly grabbed the bottom of his undershirt and pulled it over his head, but John couldn’t help noticing that Sherlock’s hands were shaking.

John stepped forward, staring at the red scar on Sherlock’s chest. It still got to him. It didn’t matter that he knew it had healed, that the red blood was contained within new but perfectly healthy scar tissue. It still felt like it was running out of Sherlock, seeping onto the floor and into his chest cavity, draining him.

Sherlock looked down at him with an odd look in his eyes. “That wasn’t the scar you wanted to see, was it?”

“No,” John whispered.

Sherlock reached for his glass and drained it. He stared into it for a moment and then said “Maybe a refill first.”

John took Sherlock’s glass and stepped into the kitchen, picking up his own glass on the way. He took care not to look at Sherlock, to give him the space that he seemed to need to prepare for what they were about to do.

John’s hand trembled a little bit as he poured the whisky, making the bottle clink against the edge of the grass. He tried to push down the familiar anger at the body that kept betraying him.

He walked back to the living room where Sherlock was standing awkwardly in the middle of the floor. He took a sip of his own whisky and put the glass on the side table. Then, John put Sherlock’s glass back in his hand, holding it firmly until Sherlock had grasped it, looking him in the eye and letting their fingers linger together for a moment. He was trying with everything but words to say that this is ok, we will get through this, we can do this. He hoped that Sherlock got the message.

Sherlock took the glass from John and took a sip, his eyes not leaving John’s. Then, he slowly turned around and stood staring into the fire, cradling the glass against his chest as if he were lost in thought.

John wasn’t fooled. He knew that Sherlock was on edge. But he was choosing to do this, to allow John this courtesy. Stepping closer, John looked away for a moment, preparing.

As John moved, Sherlock flinched and looked over his shoulder. “Sorry. It’s just hard having someone right behind me.”

John put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. It was warm to the touch, but tense underneath the smooth skin. “Better?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Sherlock’s shoulders lowered a tiny bit, as if he was relaxing a little under John’s hand.

Finally, John lifted his eyes and looked at Sherlock’s back. The patterns in his skin told an awful story. John started to look away again, but righted himself. Sherlock was being incredibly brave, letting him see this. He should honour that and not shy away.

John ghosted his fingers over the worst of the scars. “Do they hurt?”

“Not really.”

“But they itch?”

“Yes. More so lately.”

John hummed to himself. There could be a number of reasons for that, many of them psychological. But now was not the time to open up that discussion. “Any numbness?”

“Apart from the scar tissue, no, I don’t think so. But I don’t make a habit of touching things with my back, so.”

The medical part of John’s mind had started whirring with questions and suggestions but tonight Sherlock needed a friend, not a doctor. To ground himself in the moment and to try to push the medicine away, he placed his other hand on Sherlock’s other shoulder. Sherlock tensed at first, but then relaxed again. It seemed to John that Sherlock was slowly melting into his touch, and he thought, irrationally, that they were becoming joined, that he could feel Sherlock’s emotions flowing through his hands.  

“I want to hurt the people who hurt you.” The words came out of his mouth before he knew he was going to say them, and judging from Sherlock’s quick look over his shoulder, they were both equally surprised.

John was overwhelmed with thoughts of actually hurting someone, punching a nose and hearing cartilage break, kicking a torso and feeling ribs crack, pulling a trigger and forever stopping cruel hands from hurting Sherlock ever again. It flooded him with rage and he realised that he was gripping Sherlock’s shoulders too hard. He loosened his grip and smoothed his palms up and down, to remove whatever pain he had caused.

A deep breath later, his anger turned over and made him sick to his stomach with worry. He wanted to turn the rage back on. Being angry had always suited him better, but if he were to let that beast loose, this tiny bubble of tentative closeness would pop and be gone forever. Instead, he leaned his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder blade and closed his eyes, breathing through the nausea.

“Are there any more?” He needed to know.

“Any more scars?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock turned around slowly and John’s hands fell awkwardly to his sides. Sherlock put down his empty whisky glass and stretched his arms out in front of him. There were thin, spidery marks around his wrists.

John circled them gently with his hands. “What are these?” he asked, even though he knew the answer already.

“Metal shackles rubs skin raw very quickly, it seems.”

“These didn’t get infected,” John said.

“No. Mycroft got me out at that point.”

John realised that he was gripping hard again, holding Sherlock too tight which must be both uncomfortable and triggering for him. With effort, John relaxed his fingers and let his thumbs smooth the soft skin on the inside of Sherlock’s wrist, feeling the occasional bump of thicker scar tissue.

This was a unique moment in time, John realised. Right now, they were in a magical place where all the regular rules for John and Sherlock, and for British males in general, did not apply. Tonight, he could ask the right questions, but he needed to ask them now, before the magic disappeared. Where to start? He thought of Sherlock’s comment about being an idiot and decided that he needed to know more precisely what kind of idiot Sherlock was - the naive kind, or the reckless kind.

”Sherlock, when you went to Serbia, did you know that you might get caught or was it unexpected? He kept his thumbs moving slowly, trying not to scare Sherlock away.

“I knew that it was a possibility.”

“A strong possibility or just a risk?”

“I was hoping to fly under the radar while I pushed two warring factions into taking each other out.”

John felt a crooked smile pull at the corner of his mouth. “A strong possibility, then. Now, here’s what I don’t understand. Taking a risk, thinking that you will be able to outsmart your opponent, that I can understand. We do that all the time. But knowingly walking into the lion’s den without protection when you don’t have to. That is either incredibly stupid or incredibly reckless. Why do you do that? Why did you have to go after them?”

Sherlock stayed silent for a long time, turning his hands to cradle John’s wrists with his long, calloused fingers.

Finally, he looked up to meet John’s eyes. Once again, John felt pinned in place, caught in the laser beam of Sherlock’s attention.

“Because otherwise you would be dead,” Sherlock said gravely.

“What are you talking about?”

“On the roof of Barts, Moriarty told me that he had snipers ready to take you out. You, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade were dead, unless I killed myself.

“Snipers? There were snipers?” John realised that he had flinched when he felt Sherlock’s hands tug on his wrists from the movement.

“Yes. And Moriarty was the only one who could call them off, so when he shot himself in the head, there was no other way out. I had to make them believe that I was dead, and then take out everyone who could have known about the order.”

John froze. He had heard and used the expression many times before but never realised that it was possible to actually freeze. Perfectly still, not functioning, not capable of neither thought nor action.

“So we were … There were … He did …”

Sherlock’s face turned soft. “You thinking that I was dead, and getting on with your life, was the best possible protection for all three of you. I didn’t realise that you would grieve, but the fact that you did provided extra protection.”

John suddenly unfroze again, as quickly and uncomfortably as if he had been doused in cold water. “You didn’t realise that I would grieve?”

“No.”

John pulled his hands away from Sherlock’s, walked over to the side table and took a long drink from his whisky, hoping to figure out another way to interpret that statement. He couldn’t find one, but there had to be one. He had to ask, if he could just find his voice. After putting the glass carefully back on the side table, he leaned forward with his hands on the back of the chair and breathed deeply for a moment.

Sherlock had started pacing. “I’m sorry, John, I …”

John held up his hand to stop him. “You didn’t realise that I would grieve?” he asked again. Even his voice sounded cold, as if that bucket of ice water had seeped into his very soul.

“No,” Sherlock whispered.

John looked up at Sherlock. “How could you not know?”

“I don’t know.”

John took another deep breath. This was so much worse than he had ever imagined. Sherlock really was a machine.

“If you cannot even imagine grief, the thought of us dying wouldn’t have bothered you. Why throw your entire life away and go to Serbia?”

This time, it was Sherlock who reeled. He stepped backwards, as if physically hit by John’s words, tugging wildly at his hair and said “No. No. John. No.”

“No what?” John felt like he was going to split apart into a million confused pieces.

“You are not understanding me. I’m not …” Sherlock stopped, and started again. “I know grief. Why do you think …” He made another try. “The thought of life without you … I couldn’t bear it, John. I had to go. They would have killed you.” Sherlock was speaking faster and faster, gesticulating wildly. ”I had to find them and take them out, make sure that none of them ever got close to you. I couldn’t bear the thought of life without you. Don’t you see?”

John stared at Sherlock.

“John?”

There was a chasm opening inside of John and he was falling right down into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	12. Realisations

John had started moving again, and Sherlock was thankful for that. But he had sat down in his chair with a look of utter desolation on his face and Sherlock couldn’t understand what he had done to put it there. Sherlock backed towards the windows to give John some space. The cool draft soothed the itching on his bare back, where his scars seemed to want to crawl out of his skin.

Finally, John spoke. “So let me get this straight.” He gripped the armrests of the chair, as if to steady himself. “The reason that you jumped, was that Moriarty had set up snipers to kill me, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade unless you killed yourself. And then he shot himself in the head, ensuring that there was no way to make him take the order back. So you faked your own death, went on your own to take out Moriarty’s network and then you got caught and tortured in Serbia.” He had managed to deliver the speech in one go, but now his voice had started wavering. “Because you couldn’t bear the thought of life without me?”

“Yes, that is about it.” 

John rubbed the armrests of the chair, kneading the stuffing under the worn fabric.

“Sherlock. Why did you never tell me?”

“I tried, when I got back. But the more I tried to explain, the angrier you got. So I thought it best to let it be. You know. Never explain, never complain.”

John stood up abruptly and went to the whisky bottle. He refilled their glasses, his hands shaking properly now, clinking the bottle precariously against the glasses. He sat down again, nursing his whisky, much like he used to do before the aqua regia case. 

Sherlock couldn’t take the silence anymore. “John?”

No answer.

“Did I do something wrong? Not good?”

John jolted out of his contemplation. “No, Sherlock. You did nothing wrong.” He stared down into his whisky glass. “I did. I have been an arse, it seems.”

Looking up, John stared with hard eyes at, through, beyond Sherlock as he spoke. It felt uncanny to be looked at like that. “My best friend doesn’t even know that I would grieve his death, but throws away his whole life and reputation, enduring torture and risking death to save me. What do I do when he returns? I get so angry that he isn’t even able to tell me about it. I punched you, Sherlock, I tried to strangle you.”

John clenched his fist on his leg, knuckles turning white. “I threw you to the ground,” he said quietly. “I was the one who tore your stitches, wasn’t I?”

Sherlock tried to look away before John could read the answer in his eyes, but he wasn’t quick enough. 

“It was me.I threw you to the ground in that poncy restaurant, and you had just been pulled out of some torture chamber, stitches all over your back.” John sounded as if he was the one being tortured. “How many more injuries did you have, Sherlock? Your wrists. You’ve kept your sleeves buttoned since then. Did you have broken ribs? Bruises? I never stopped to ask. I never even asked if you were ok.”

John drew into himself, becoming small and hollow, like a bent bow pushing back into the armchair from the tension. It seemed to Sherlock that his own heart was doing something similar in his chest.

“John, it doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter then either.”

John sat still and tense, as if he was trying to implode.

“I was just happy to see that you were alive. Nothing else mattered,” Sherlock tried.

John took a ragged breath. “I believed you, you know, that very first night after we had run through London. Lestrade did a drugs bust and Anderson called you a psychopath. You said that you were a high-functioning sociopath and I believed you.”

“It seemed a likely diagnosis.”

John looked up at Sherlock and suddenly looked soft, warm. “You diagnosed yourself, didn’t you?”

Surprised by the unexpected deduction, Sherlock didn’t think to stop himself from answering. “Well … yes. It seemed best. The professionals obviously didn’t know what they were doing.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.” Memories of his pre-teen self rushed back at him, his infinite certainty of his mind’s rule over his body. That was long after he had stopped crying, and still a few seasons before the raging hormones of puberty. A short period of blissful stability, in that area at least.

“Ah.” For a moment, there was almost a twinkle in John’s eye and Sherlock thought that perhaps he has lifted himself out of the gloom now. But then he sank down into the chair again.

“Mary. She shot you and I let her get away with it.” John shrank even further back into the chair, digging his fingers into the armrests until Sherlock feared the fabric would tear. “I  should have given her up to the police. No, I should have killed her myself.”

John looked up at Sherlock with scary, dark eyes. His fingers slipped from the fabric of the armrests and clenched into hard fists. 

Without thinking, Sherlock kneeled in front of John, gently placing his hands on top of John’s fists. “John, don’t. I know she’s hurt you, and me, but she is the mother of your child. Just let it be.”

“How can you just let all these things happen to you?”

Sherlock didn’t think John would appreciate if he pointed out the absurdity of that question, so he just shrugged.

Suddenly, John sat up straight, placing his left hand on top of Sherlock’s scar from the gunshot, the pads of his fingers touching the thick, shiny scar surface. It felt odd to be touched where there were no nerve endings, and there was always the risk that the pressure would trigger the pain, but Sherlock didn’t want to stop him. The heat of his fingertips felt like a balm, like salvation. 

“If I had gone to the police when I found out that she was the one who shot you, would you have let Magnussen be?” John’s voice roused Sherlock from the distracting sensation of heat and touch.

Sherlock shrugged again, his eyes drifting down to John’s hand on his chest. 

“You killed him for me and Mary. You knew full well that you were throwing your life away again. For me and for your own murderer. Why?”

Sherlock looked up at John, hoping that his eyes could communicate what words always failed. “I made a vow, John. To always be there.”

John’s hand curled to a loose fist resting against Sherlock’s ribs and his face crumpled. Impossibly, tears were slowly starting to run down John’s cheeks. The concept of John crying threw Sherlock for a loop. What did one do now?

Uncertainly, he lifted his hand and placed it on John’s shoulder. John curled in on himself, bending his head until the hair tickled Sherlock’s chin. After a moment’s hesitation, Sherlock put his other hand on John’s neck and drew him in, cradling him in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	13. Dissolving

John drew a deep, shaky breath and straightened up. God, this was embarrassing. He had not cried in front of anyone since he was a boy. He wiped his face on his sleeve and opened his gritty eyes. An uncertain laugh slipped out of his mouth as he saw Sherlock’s pale chest wet with tears. More humiliation. He took the other sleeve and tried ineffectually to wipe Sherlock’s chest with it, avoiding the scar that must still be sensitive.

“Well, I’m glad no one saw that,” he heard himself saying.

Immediately, Sherlock’s face shuttered. “Yes. I know. Not gay.”

“No, I didn’t mean …” 

Sherlock had already stood up, brushed off his trousers and gone to pick up the bottle. “More whisky, don’t you think?” His steps were a bit unsteady as he walked back. 

John put his hand over his glass as Sherlock tried to pour, refusing. Sherlock’s glass was almost untouched since John last refilled it, but Sherlock poured more anyway, carelessly. He took the glass in his hand and slid down to sit on the floor in front of his chair, leaning his back against the seat and squirming a bit as if he was unconsciously scratching his scars against the seam of the leather. Taking a large swig of the drink, he stared intently into the fire.

John closed his eyes for a moment. He couldn’t make sense of what had just happened, or what had been happening all night. He felt a little bit light headed from the drink, and wrung out from the emotional roller-coaster.

For something to do, he picked up his glass and looked at the liquid in the light from the fire. It reminded him of that night when it all started, when Lestrade had called them to look at a corpse who had exploded his own marriage in his face. John almost snorted. On another night, “death by sour marriage” would have been a delightfully inappropriate joke. 

“This is the same kind of glass as that chemist used when he tried to dissolve his wedding ring.” Alcohol really did loosen the tongue. He hadn’t planned to say that. “That case really got to me. I felt like I was the one lying on that balcony, inhaling acid and choking on my own marriage.”  Images of Sherlock bleeding out in the ambulance flashed before John’s eyes, mixed with his last view of Rosie, crying inconsolably in the car seat as Mary drove away. He resolutely pushed the memories down and searched for a distraction.

Suddenly, he had an idea. He put the glass down and wriggled the ring off his finger. Holding the glass up once more, he dropped the ring into the whisky. It plopped satisfyingly as it broke the surface. John watched the gold and the amber gleam in the firelight, mesmerising him.

Sherlock looked up. “I don’t think the whisky is going to do much to your ring, John.”

“No. But the ring will do something to the whisky.”

Sherlock frowned, visibly confused. An inappropriate giggle was rising in John’s chest. He didn’t get to confuse The Great Detective very often. “The drink is getting to you, Sherlock. You are getting slow.”

“What?”

“Alcohol is a good solvent. It will clean the ring.”

“Yes. Well, good for you. Clean ring.”

“Nooo, Sherlock. I don’t want to drink the whisky now, since the alcohol is dissolving the dirt on my ring.

Sherlock was staring blankly at him. John fought hard to keep the bubbling laughter in his chest to stay put. 

“God, you really are drunk,” he chuckled. “My ring is dirty, Sherlock. Deduce it.”

Realisation dawned on Sherlock’s face. “Oh.”

“The state of your marriage.”

“Yes, Sherlock. The state of my marriage.”

John’s right hand was touching his ring finger, as if it wanted to twist the ring and was confused about not finding it there. “I never should have married Mary.” His tongue was acting of its own accord once more. “I never felt whole with her. But after you jumped, I never expected to again. And she made me laugh.” 

John realised that he needed to amend that statement. “She made me laugh, but once you came back, she kept trying to make me laugh about you. About us. It never sat right with me.” 

Sherlock drank some more of his whisky, and John wished he could do the same to wash away the taste of love gone sour from the back of his throat. But he had dropped his ring in it and he didn’t want to drink the dirt. He almost chuckled when he realised what he was thinking. What a metaphor from hell.

“I have never begrudged you your marriage, John,” Sherlock said stiffly.

“No, that’s another thing that I never understood. You chased away every girlfriend I ever had, but nothing could turn you against Mary. Not even her trying to kill you.”.

“You wanted her. I wanted you to be happy. Ergo.”

John snorted. “Trust a public school boy to start spouting Latin when he’s drunk.”

“I’m not drunk!” Sherlock said a bit too loudly.

“Yes, you are.” 

“No, I’m not.” 

John felt a smile spread from his lips to his face to his whole body. Sherlock was adorable when he was tipsy. Loose limbed and pouting and a tiny bit camp. “Fine. Let’s play a drinking game, then. See how you hold up.”

John went to the kitchen to get himself a new glass, pouring whisky for himself and refilling Sherlock’s glass. He was feeling a little bit unsteady but he ignored it.

“So. A while ago, I was talking to you about wanting to help. You said that was Moriarty’s specialty. What kind of relationship did you two have, Sherlock?” Again, the alcohol had betrayed him. He had intended to say something light, start the drinking game, and instead he had dragged up another jealousy from the past.

Sherlock looked up at him, surprised but not at all defensive. “He was my enemy, my adversary. After he was acquitted at the trial, he visited me and told me that he owed me a fall. After that, he kept sending me messages saying “I owe you”. You used that same expression.”

“So he wasn’t anything more to you?”

“No, John. He was my enemy. My arch-enemy.”

“I thought that was Mycroft.”

Sherlock smiled. “I thought people didn’t have arch-enemies.”

“They don’t,” John said, relieved that Sherlock had delivered the levity that he himself had failed to achieve.

“What do other people have then, in their real lives,” Sherlock said, once more repeating lines from their first night together.

John dragged his memory for the right phrase. “Friends. People they know. People they like. People they don’t like. Girlfriends, boyfriends …”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, serious all of a sudden. “I’ve never had much of those.”

“None at all?” The thought created a little pool of sadness at the bottom of John’s heart.

“I got one friend, anyway.” Sherlock smiled happily, looking very young. But the smile faltered. “I think?”

“I am your friend, Sherlock. Always,” John said as convincingly as he could.

The smile returned.

“What about the rest?” John couldn’t help himself.

“Lots of people I don’t like. Not so many that I like.”

“Boyfriends and girlfriends, then?” 

“You have to drink if you are going to ask that question.”

The drinking game! John had completely forgotten about that. “Oh, is that the rule.”

“Yes.” Sherlock nodded gravely.

“Well then.” John took a sip from his glass. “So,” he started.

“So.” 

John couldn’t decide if Sherlock looked scared or amused. “Girlfriends?”

“No.”

“Boyfriends?” John was starting to feel butterflies in his stomach. He had never imagined these questions would be answered.

“Not really.”

“Not really?” This was interesting.

“No.” Sherlock was staring impassively at him.

“Now you have to drink,” John decided. 

“Why?”

“Penalty for not answering the question properly.” He nodded for emphasis.

Sherlock drank, but stayed silent.

“Come on, tell me now.”

“I don’t have to tell you. I took the penalty,” Sherlock said with a coy smile.

John felt his pulse go up, vibrating through his body. “I want you to tell me.” 

“Then you have to drink as well.”

John took a long drink, holding Sherlock’s gaze.  His pulse picked up even more and he tried not to get lost in the colour shifts in Sherlock’s eyes as light from the fire flickered over his face. 

Sherlock took another drink as well. “What do you want to know?”

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

“Define boyfriend.”

Sherlock was not going to make this easy for him. “A boy or a man that you were romantically involved with.”

“No.”

“Have you ever been kissed?” 

“Yes.” 

John could have sworn that Sherlock’s eyes flickered to his lips when he answered. “Have you ever had sex?” This was dangerous territory.

“Define sex.”

John unsuccessfully tried to keep his mind from far too explicit definitions. “You are not making this easy for me.”

“No.” Sherlock’s face had lost its pallor and he was either flushed from the drink or blushing.

“I’m not sober enough for interrogation techniques at this level!” John protested. He shifted in his seat and made another attempt. “Have you ever engaged in sexual activities of any sort together with another person?”

“Yes.” Now Sherlock was definitely blushing.

“Did you like it?”

Sherlock looked up, clearly surprised by the question. “I … I don’t know. I suppose so?”

“Have you had sex with just one person, or were there others?”

“Define …” 

John interrupted him with a wave of his hand. “Oh, sexual activity with another blah blah, you know what I mean.”

Sherlock giggled as if John had said something very funny. “No. Just one.” 

“Did you love him?” Another question that slipped out without John’s consent.

Sherlock stopped giggling and looked very young again. “I thought so.”

The expression on Sherlock’s face made John’s heart ache. “Do you miss him?”

“No. He wasn’t very nice to me. And I probably wasn’t very nice to him,” Sherlock said gravely. 

“I think you were.” John wouldn’t have been able to say why he felt so certain about that. “I think you were awkward and abrasive and very much yourself and if he didn’t appreciate that, he’s a fool.”

Sherlock searched John’s face with an odd expression on his face, as if he kept switching between deducing John and withdrawing in pain.

Best to continue recreating the scene from that first night. “So, you’re unattached, like me.” John said and winked. Why did he wink? He never winked.

“Are you?” Sherlock remained serious.

John raised the glass and shook it a bit so that the whisky and the ring sloshed around. He put it down and licked a few spilled whisky drops from his thumb. “But you are married to your work, though.”

Sherlock stared at him, face impassive but eyes burning, and slowly lifted his glass to his lips for a long drink. Finally, he lowered his eyes, his eyelashes dark against his pale cheeks. “John. I … I always used to say that.”

John sat up. “You are not anymore?”

Sherlock looked into the fire for a long moment and pressed his glass to his cheek, hiding behind it. “I’m not sure I ever was.”

John wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or if the ground actually was moving beneath his feet. “So, why have you never been with anyone in all the time that I’ve known you?”

“It’s not as easy as that.” 

John couldn’t believe his ears. “Come on! With your cheekbones and your long legs? You could pick up anyone you want!” 

“No.” Sherlock seemed to withdraw further behind his glass.

“What do you mean, no?”

“It doesn’t really work like that when they are not gay,” Sherlock said stiffly.

“Oh.” John took another sip of his whisky to dispel the cold feeling that was spreading in his belly. “I didn’t know you were interested in anyone special.”

“Don’t make fun of me, John.” Sherlock unfolded from his curled up position on the floor and strode into the kitchen, hardly touching the furniture for balance at all. Graceful even when he was drunk. 

John turned in his seat. “What do you mean?”

Sherlock banged around the kitchen until he found the coffee tin.

“Sherlock, what did you mean?” John stood up as well.

“Just leave it.”

John couldn’t leave it, not now. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, you didn’t say anything. There is nothing to be said. Do you want coffee?”

John walked over to Sherlock and grabbed his wrist. Ground coffee sprinkled across the counter and onto the floor. “Why are you making coffee in the middle of the night?”

“I was in Scandinavia for a while. They often made coffee at the end of the night. It clears the head instead of muddling it with more alcohol,” Sherlock said, sounding maddeningly cool.

“Sherlock. Please tell me what just happened here.” John couldn’t be bothered to care that he was pleading.

Sherlock leaned his head against the cupboard. “I am married to my work and you are not gay. End of story.”

Straightening up, Sherlock slammed the lid of the tin in place, flipped the switch on the coffee machine and disappeared into his bedroom. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	14. Lies we tell ourselves

The coffee machine beeped mutedly on the other side of Sherlock’s bedroom door. Time to face the music. Sherlock wrapped his dressing gown more tightly around his body and tied the sash. 

In the kitchen, he grabbed mugs without looking towards the living room. In the corner of his eye, he could see the top of John’s head over the back of his chair. He poured coffee in both mugs and went to his own chair, placing John’s cup on the side table on the way.

Eyes downcast, Sherlock drank his coffee. He had no idea what to do now, or what he wanted to happen. John hadn’t left yet, so he supposed that was some sort of success. 

When he couldn’t drag out the coffee drinking any longer, having sipped with closed lips on the last dregs for several minutes already, he put the mug down on the floor and lifted his eyes to look at John.

“What did you mean by that, Sherlock.” John hadn’t touched the cup and seemed to be sitting in exactly the same position as before. As if he had been waiting for Sherlock like a hunter on a prey.

Sherlock made his best attempt at an icy stare. “I asked you to let it go.”

“I’m sorry, Sherlock.” John said between clenched teeth. “This is … This is my life, Sherlock!” He was suddenly shouting again. “The rest of my life!”

“Well, it’s all of mine!”  Sherlock shouted back.

John jumped up from the chair and, with an unintelligible roar, grabbed the whisky glass with the ring and threw it into the fire.

Unexpectedly, Sherlock found himself standing instead of crouching in fear in response to John’s sudden outburst. His hands were fisted by his side, his pulse was racing, he was ready to fight.

John turned on Sherlock, face twisted and shoulders hunched, as if he were a turtle provoked into sticking his head out of his shell. He took a deep breath and pointed his finger aggressively at Sherlock. “Do you love me, Sherlock?”

“Yes, but you’re not gay!” Sherlock shouted back, pointing his finger as well.

“I don’t care!” John screamed, throwing his arms out. “Are you married to your work?”

“NO!”

John grabbed Sherlock's lapels violently and banged his fists against his chest. They stood there for a few moments, frozen in time, staring wildly at each other, panting. Finally, Sherlock broke. His arms lifted of their own accord, his hands found John’s stubbled cheeks, cradling them. And then he kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


	15. I can’t kiss you when you’re grinning

The kiss was gentle but all-consuming. It took Sherlock a long moment to even realise that John was kissing him back, but when he did, he felt his heart leap with joy in his chest. He did not even pause to frown over the biological impossibility of such an event. 

John was kissing him back, pulling him down by the lapels of his dressing gown and kissing, insistently. The sharp stubble of John’s unshaven cheeks rasped against the delicate skin on the inside of Sherlock’s hands and he realised that he was still cradling John’s face like something precious found on the beach. He stroked his hands upwards, recreating the tingling friction, letting the palms of his hands caress John’s cheeks and the tips of his fingers reach into the golden silver of John’s hair.

John started moving his hands as well, as if Sherlock’s caress had alerted him to the fact that he too had hands, and inspired him to use them. He slid one of them up to Sherlock’s neck, pressing hot against his skin, and the other into Sherlock’s hair, tugging lightly and twirling, twirling until Sherlock felt like he was twirling as well, spinning around the centre of the universe that was John.

Sherlock started to feel light-headed and was suddenly gripped by fear that he would wobble, stumble, so that the moment would be broken and the kiss be gone forever. He opened his eyes a sliver, looking for something to help him find his balance. John was too close for his eyes to focus on, and the angle of their heads made it impossible look at anything but his right ear, anyway. Breaking the kiss was unacceptable, so he looked over John’s shoulder where the fire glowed in the quiet night. 

An ember popped, sending sparks up into the chimney. It sounded unnaturally loud and made Sherlock flinch minutely. John started rubbing Sherlock’s neck soothingly and then slid his hand down to Sherlock’s back. 

Sherlock flinched for real, then, as John brushed one of the larger scars on his shoulder blade. It didn’t hurt, but Sherlock felt surprisingly oversensitive, as if all the nerve endings buried under a thick layer of scar tissue had suddenly pushed through to the surface.  

John immediately pulled back, breaking the kiss. “Sorry, Sherlock, I’m so sorry! I didn’t think.”

“It’s fine.” Sherlock was already missing John’s touch. “Put your hand back where it was. I want you to.”

Uncertainly, John returned his hand to Sherlock’s back, carefully placing it flat over the scar, pressing lightly but firmly. It felt fine. No, better than fine. The itching stopped and an undefinable warmth was spreading from John’s hand to Sherlock’s back and beyond. 

“Is this all right?”

“Yes.” Sherlock meant to say more, to reassure John that he never wanted to lose his touch again. But his face broke out in a grin so wide that he couldn’t make his mouth form the words. 

Slowly, John started smiling as well. It was a sight to behold, a glowing, sparkling smile that seemed to spring from the bottom of John’s soul. “Good.” He pressed his hand more firmly against Sherlock’s back and pulled his head down for another kiss, kneading his fingertips lightly into Sherlock’s scalp. 

It wasn’t possible to kiss and grin at the same time, Sherlock discovered. He tried to relax his facial muscles, but they wouldn’t cooperate and he ended up grinning even wider than before. His teeth clacked against John’s and John pulled back, surprised. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Sherlock managed to get out. 

“Why are you grinning?”

“I don’t know. But I can’t stop,” Sherlock said, grinning even harder. His facial muscles were starting to ache. 

John’s smile turned into a grin too, and he started giggling. 

“Stop giggling,” Sherlock said. “I can’t kiss you when you’re giggling.”

“I can’t kiss you when you’re grinning,” John giggled back, his hands slipping back down Sherlock’s front to grab his lapels once more, for support this time.  

“OK, we’ll stop now.” To get himself under control, Sherlock looked over to the fire again, staring intently at the glowing embers and the dancing, golden light glimmering in the shards of glass from John’s broken whisky tumbler. He could just make out John’s wedding ring among the coals. It was mostly blackened with soot, but somehow still gleaming.

“Do you think it will have glowing runes now?” Sherlock said, looking back down on John and sliding his arms down around John’s back, wrapping them around him.

“What?”

“The ring. Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.”

“Have I kissed your wits away? John leaned back in his arms, frowning.

“I seem to have kissed away your memory. You used to love those films.”

“What films?”

“Those films with the little guys stumbling around in a swamp.”

“A swamp?”

“Yes? One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

“The Lord of the Rings?! You can cite the One Ring lines in Black Speech, but the only thing you remember from the films is the Dead Marshes? John slammed his fists playfully at Sherlock's chest.

Sherlock tightened his arms, trapping John’s arms in his embrace. “Well, there was something about an octopus in a lake on a mountain as well.”

“Shut up!” John scrunched the lapels of Sherlock’s dressing gown in his hands, pulling his neck down to kiss him quiet.

A few warm lipped moments later, John pulled back and looked Sherlock in the eye. “I don’t want to dissolve the ring, and I don’t want to throw it in Mount Doom. That would give too much importance to something that hasn’t meant anything to me for a long time. I stayed for Rosie, not for the marriage. I’ll give the ring to charity.”

“I don’t care about the ring,” Sherlock said. John’s lips were only centimeters away, red, moist and a bit chapped. 

John leaned forward, but aborted the kiss before Sherlock felt more than the flakes on John’s lips brush against his own. “I’m not drunk. Not that drunk, I should say. I really mean this. You, me. I mean it.”

Sherlock felt the room spinning around him again and held on tighter to John. “I’m drunk and I mean it. Too. I mean it too.”

Sherlock lowered his eyes and fixed them on John’s bottom lip. “I have always meant it. But I have not the faintest idea how to do this.” The words hurt in his chest as he said them.

John bumped his nose against Sherlock’s. “What do you want?”

“I want to kiss you. And I want to chase criminals with you, and catch them.”

“We’ll catch them. Now kiss me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's it then. Hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> I'm a writer who needs prompts. Right now, I'm trying to write one fic for each of my "Moffat's chickens", but I need more prompts! Want to help me? Come talk to me at obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com!
> 
> Here's the link to my latest ask for prompts:  
> https://obotligtnyfiken.tumblr.com/post/168682851273/fics-based-on-moffats-chickens-so-far


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